Category Archive

F I Z Z L E . . .

so i woke up this morning with a huge headache and a dull aching pain throughout my body. this is what happens when i push myself too hard. God, in His loving grace inflicts me with something that keeps me home, makes me cancel all appointments and causes me to sleep and sleep and sleep.

a wise friend exhorted me to read Hebrews 4 today – a chapter on entering God’s place of rest. oh so convicting. i feel like He’s put me back in the right place by His word. i don’t want to be like the Israelites who refused to live by faith and thus forfeited the rest that He offered. i want to take hold of God’s invitation to rest Today! and i’m so thankful for Jesus, my High Priest, who knew what it was to face the temptation to rely on his own strength rather than live in surrender to the Father.

i know that what i really need to do is allow God to expose the cause of my drivenness. why is it that i feel like i have to run myself dry all the time? who am i trying to please? whose standards am i trying to live up to? what lies am i believing about myself? about God? oh Lord, please set me free.

i also realize how reluctant i am to face my limitations – not only to face them, but to embrace them. God has not wired me to meet people 6 days a week and still thrive. i need to hermit a lot more than i want to accept about myself. and so i ask God to show me how He’d have me serve His people. and i ask Him to show me how to love myself as He does.

i want to have a heart at rest. a heart of faith.

CONNECT-THE-DOTS

in my mind, i’m standing on a page. surrounding me are lots of dots. my goal is to connect them all somehow. i draw a straight line from the dot i’m standing at to the nearest one on my right. so far so good. i draw another line. but as i’m drawing, anxiety rises in my heart – how exactly is everything going to link together? where does that dot fit in? what about this one??? what if my lines end up crossing and i end up in a mess????

this, i realize, is what i’m trying to do with the various elements of my life. i’m trying to logically make sense of things that don’t seem to fit together at the moment. and i’m trying to figure it all out on my own.

God is bigger than this page of dots i’m standing on though. He is poised and ready to connect my dots. it may not be with straight lines. He may ignore some of the dots and draw some new ones. but He sees the picture He wants to create.

the question is, am i willing to let Him hold the pen?

DEPTHS

this morning, i was reflecting on a very familiar psalm when some new insight broke through. (don’t you love it when that happens? it’s like you’re reading something you’ve read a thousand times and even memorized when you suddenly see a phrase in a new light and it reveals a new dimension you’ve never thought of before.)

i used to think that the author was trying to hide in the darkness – to run away from God. and that God cannot be hidden from as much as we try.

what i realized this morning was that it could be out of despair that the psalmist writes. he feels engulfed in darkness and uncertainty and thinks that surely God will not know where to rescue him from. but the hope and the truth is that God cannot be stumped by darkness. He still sees clearly through our uncertainties.

yay for a God who has perfect perspective!

EMBRACING THE RIDICULOUSNESS OF GOD

a friend and I were musing over dim sum yesterday about faith and art and missions in Asia when out of the blue, she said something like, “until you embrace the ridiculousness of God, you don’t experience the fullness of all He wants to bless you with.” that’s probably one of the best descriptions of how our relationship with God works. not only is salvation – the idea that God would become a man to die in our place – ridiculous, but many things God calls us to do, many steps of faith seem ridiculous. i feel like this morning i potentially wrecked something that was going well. in this case, God’s holiness seems ridiculous, especially when compared to the world’s standard of what’s acceptable. embracing God’s ridiculousness is to trust that He knows what He’s asking for – and that it’s for our good.

so even though all i see right now is the ridiculous, i trust that somewhere down the line, i’ll see the blessing.

ADAM’S JOB

it seems that lately, i’m on a Genesis kick. :)

i was talking to a friend one night about how God made Adam wait for Eve and gave him the job of naming the animals when the full weight of the responsibility hit me. as an artist, i usually name my works. and it bugs me when people get the name wrong. what baffles me is that God would make all these fantastic creatures and then let Adam name them! like, what if Adam called it a giraffe when God himself would have named it a dimiatee? the fact that God let Adam name his animals speaks volumes about the amount of trust that God has in us. this is how much God values his people!

similarly, i wonder God has His own set of names for us people? like Jacob, God renamed Israel. i wonder if God privately thinks of us in terms of names other than the ones our parents named us?

i guess i’ll have to wait till heaven to find that one out. :p

REFUGE

when God decides enough’s enough and He orchestrates events and circumstances to break my pride and wean me off my self-reliance, my old self raises a lot of stink. like waves crashing violently and mountains hurtling into the heart of the sea, turmoil fills my soul.

this week, i was finally forced to come to terms with the possibility that i might be sick. *gasp*, i know. but it’s not the flu or cold type sick. all these years, i’ve been coping with indigestion and belly aches and now, i’m driven to admit that something might be wrong with me. this thing that i’ve attributed to stress, that i’ve asked countless times for prayer for, could very well be a problem with the way my body is wired to mis-function (if that’s even a word). made with a flaw in the system. i could be sick for life.

“it’s hard to come to terms with our limitations,” my dear friend counseled me over tea and cookies tonight. she had me pegged. i could try to emphathize with the many people around me who have various kinds of illnessess and disabilities, but i really thought i was invincible. that i was untouchable. and now i find myself in deep appreciation of all those who are in much worse positions than myself yet continue to live to their fullest, making the most of every day.

oh that God would grant me a heart of gratitude! that i would remember that EVERY thing comes from His hand. i want to be able to say with Paul that His grace is sufficient for me; that His power is made perfect in weakness; that i will boast all the more about my weaknesses because that’s when His glory is manifested most brilliantly.

i hate change. i really do. and i hate having my weaknesses, self-centeredness and immaturity exposed. it’s so uncomfortable but so necessary. and the truth of the matter is, God is good. no matter what.

Rock of Ages cleft for me,
let me hide myself in Thee.

WONDER

ever wonder at a sunset? brilliant hues and shades of orange and red slowly shifting into pinks, purples and blues as the light slips away and the sky is blanketed with darkness. trees slowly become silhouettes and the faint song of the stars grows louder and clearer. we sit in our cars, or homes, or, if we’re fortunate, on a park bench or somewhere in the wilderness, watching the drama unfold overhead. that is, if we even notice.

but where is God? He is outside of time and space(!). how is it that One who exists beyond the limits of our earth can go about creating such stunning sculptures of light for our eyes to see? each strand of colour that reaches my eye is a result of something refracting somewhere out there. and God purposed for each and every particle of the air to be just right so that i would see what i see.

ever wonder how a sunset looks to God?